Afghanistan, af gan'is tahn', a country in Asia. In part the boundaries are not well defined, but recently a joint Russian and British commission surveyed and marked by boundary stones the land from the Oxus to the Persian frontier. The area of Afghanistan is about 280,000 sq. mi. The country consists largely of lofty, bare, uninhabited tablelands, sandy, barren plains, ranges of snow-covered mountains and deep ravines and valleys. Some of the valleys are well watered and fertile, but by far the larger part of the whole surface is rocky and unproductive. The climate is extremely cold in the higher, and intensely hot in the lower regions. Fruits of many varieties grow wild in the valleys, and the principal crops raised are wheat, barley, rice, maize, tobacco, sugar-cane and cotton. The chief towns are Kabul, Kandahar, Ghuzni and Herat. The people, most of whom are of the original Afghan race, are divided into a number of tribes, which are bold and warlike and are constantly engaged in dissensions among themselves. The Afghan language contains a great number of Persian words and is written with Arabic characters, but is distinct from the Persian. In religion the Afghans are Mohammedans of the Sunnite sect. See SUNNITES. HISTORY. The history of Afghanistan from the time of Alexander the Great to the eighteenth century consists merely in a series of conquests made by different nations. In 1738 the country was conquered by the Persians and for a number of years a tolerably strong government was maintained. About 1825 Dost Mohammed succeeded in gaining a preponderating influence in the country, which, from the date of the exile of its ruler, Shah Shuja, had been in a state of anarchy. In 1839 the British army entered the country, occupied Kabul and replaced Shah Shuja on the throne; but two years later a wide-spread insurrection occurred among the Afghans; a number of British officers, women and children were murdered, and in the following year the British left Kabul. Soon, however, a fresh army came from India, retook Kabul and finished the war. Shah Shuja had been assassinated and Dost Mohammed again obtained the throne. He died in 1863 and left as his successor his son, Shere Ali, who for a time maintained friendly relations with the British. War was declared against him, however, in 1878; the British troops entered Afghanistan, the ameer fled to Turkestan and his son, Yakub Khan, who succeeded him, concluded a treaty with the British in 1879. The extension of the British frontier, the control by Britain of the foreign policy of Afghanistan and the residence of a British envoy in Kabul were the chief stipulations of the treaty. Encroachments by the Russians on territory claimed by Afghanistan almost brought about a rupture between Britain and Russia in 1885. The position of Afghanistan between the territory of Russia and that of Great Britain gives it its chief claim to political importance. Population, 1901, about 4,000,000.